
LITTLE CHILD 


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COPY 1 


MARY ttORMIBRODK 

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A Little Child 



A 

Little Child 


BY 

MARY HORNIBROOK CUMMINS 


AUTHOR OF 

THE MIGHTY GUEST 
THE AWAKENING 




DAVIS & BOND 

BOSTON 


"Pzs 

\~i 


Copyright 1913 by 
DAVIS & BOND 




©CI.A353444 


INDEX 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Artist ..... 9 

II. The Sorrow Sea .... 22 

III. The Big Wave .... 32 
























A 

LITTLE CHILD 


Chapter I 

THE ARTIST 

He stood with bare feet planted well 
apart in the sand, working his toes down 
comfortably into its moist warmth and 
regarding Graham as though he were a 
poor riddle. His cotton blouse, open at 
the throat, showed a strong, shapely 
little neck. One brown hand grasped a 
battered tin pail, the other a wooden 
spade. 

Gilbert Graham drew out pad and 
pencil and made a rapid sketch. The 
child’s clear gaze remained fixed on his 
face while he worked. When the draw- 
ing was finished, the artist thrust it care- 
lessly into his coat pocket and resumed 
his gloomy inspection of the ocean. 


IO 


A LITTLE CHILD 


“What did you do then?” demanded 
seven-year-old curiosity. 

“Earned another slice of bread and 
butter; though why I should earn it, or 
eat it when it is earned, is more than I 
know.” 

The boy seemed to ponder on this for 
a while and then, evidently finding it 
beyond him, gave it up. 

“Let me see it,” he suggested. 

“What?” 

“What you drawed with that pencil.” 

“What I drew with this pencil?” 
Gilbert parried, for the sake of hearing 
him talk. 

“Yes.” 

“Oh, I guess not!” 

The child drew nearer and stood lean- 
ing against his knee as he sat on a low 
slab of rock. They looked steadily into 
each other’s eyes. There was some- 
thing irresistibly winning in the little 
fellow’s fearlessness and sociable intent. 
Graham lifted his hand and brushed the 
close-cropped head with gentle touch. 


A LITTLE CHILD 


ii 


“Poor little chap!” he said, huskily. 

“Why’d you say that?” the boy asked 
curiously. 

“Oh, because some day you’ll grow up 
and — well, I hope you won’t make a 
mess of it, as I have!” 

“What’s make-a-mess-of-it?” 

“Look here,” Graham demanded, “are 
you a walking interrogation point?” 

“I’m Gerald Hammond Fitzgerald,” 
the boy answered with dignity. 

“Glad to make your acquaintance, 
Gerald Hammond Fitzgerald.” If Gra- 
ham smiled inwardly, no shade of amuse- 
ment crossed his face. 

“’Me see it!” the little fellow pleaded. 

“Say, you’ve got a fair share of per- 
sistence of your own, haven’t you?” 

The artist drew the sketch from his 
pocket. He liked this small boy who 
leaned so confidently against his knee. 
Gerald glanced at the outline of himself 
and his full, childish laugh of pleasure 
rang out. 

“Draw me some more with that pen- 


12 


A LITTLE CHILD 


oil,” he pleaded, as though he thought 
the lead possessed some wonderful charm 
of its own. 

“Tickles your vanity, does it? Well, 
here goes! Put down that pail. Now 
take your spade in both hands and stoop 
over as if you were digging.” 

The boy obeyed at once, striking 
a perfectly natural attitude. Graham 
made a more elaborate drawing this 
time, throwing in a background of sea 
and sky with quick, masterful strokes. 
It occurred to him to put the suggestion 
of a storm-cloud rising in the distance, 
but he refrained. Somehow, he did not 
want to connect storm-clouds with the 
child. 

“That will do for the front cover of 
Prescott’s Weekly ,” he thought as he 
finished it. 

Gerald was plainly delighted with the 
result. 

“When I grow up,” he announced, 
“I’ll do what you do.” 

“God forbid!” 


A LITTLE CHILD 


13 


The words escaped Gilbert Graham’s 
lips, in a low breath, ere he was aware. 

Gerald regarded him wonderingly. 

“Isn’t — isn’t that good?” he ques- 
tioned, pointing to the drawing. 

“That? Oh, yes, that’s good enough.” 

“Then God wouldn’t forbid it!” the 
child declared triumphantly. 

“I didn’t mean — that kind of thing,” 
the man said. He looked more intently 
at the boy. “How do you know, at your 
age, what God would or would not for- 
bid?” 

The child seemed to turn this question 
over in his mind for a moment and, evi- 
dently finding it too much for his com- 
prehension, fell back on something of 
which he felt quite sure. 

“‘God is love’ — ‘unfailing, quick,’” he 
said, looking off over the sea, and un- 
consciously mixing up two things which 
he had learned at different times. 

Suddenly he turned and faced his com- 
panion fully. 

“Don’t you know about ‘a very pres- 
ent help’?” he asked. 


14 


A LITTLE CHILD 


“Can’t say that I do, though it sounds 
familiar. Do you know about it?” 

“Oh, yes! I’ve always known about 
it.” 

He inspected Gilbert Graham gravely, 
as though he were an entirely new type 
of being — as indeed he was to Gerald. 

“If you don’t know about ‘a very 
present help,’” he began, “what would 
you do if — if — ” he looked around, and 
finally took his illustration from the thing 
closest at hand — “if a big, oh, a big, 
big wave — ” extending his arms to their 
utmost limit to express vastness — “was 
to come and sweep you away?” 

“Drown, I suppose, seeing that I’m 
no great swimmer. What would you 
do?” 

“I’d just know ‘God is love’ — ‘unfail- 
ing, quick.’” 

“And you think that would save 
you?” 

The child nodded confidently. 

“It saved my mamma, right here. 
And it saved my daddy, too. Only the 


A LITTLE CHILD 


i5 


wave that swept my daddy out was on 
a different kind of sea from this sea.” 

“A different kind of sea?” 

“Yes. It was a sea called sin.” 

The man started and looked quickly 
away from the child. It was some mo- 
ments before he spoke. 

“Did the wave sweep your daddy 
very far out?” he asked then, in a low 
voice. 

“Oh, yes! I know, for I heard my 
daddy telling a man about it just a few 
days ago — I think a big wave must have 
swept him out, too — and he said he was 
like a boat that had slipped its — its — ” 

“Moorings?” 

Gerald nodded. 

“And drifted ’way out to sea,” he 
went on, “and ’twas black and cold and 
rough and daddy began to think of the 
shore and that gran’ma was there — 
’twas before he had mamma and me — 
and he cried out to the ‘very present 
help.’ I don’t think daddy knew, ‘God 
is love’ — ‘unfailing, quick’ then, or he’d 
have said it out loud like I do.” 


i6 


A LITTLE CHILD 


“And was he — saved?” 

“Sure.” 

Gilbert Graham sat silent, one hand 
shading his eyes. Gerald watched him 
for a few minutes, then, with a child’s 
curiosity, reached up and drew away 
one of the strong, supple fingers. He 
was surprised to find that it was wet. 

“Little chap — ” the man’s voice 
caught in his throat as he put one arm 
round the boy — “I don’t mind telling 
you that I’m out on that same sea — far 
out, farther out than your daddy ever 
was, and it’s dark and cold and rough 
and — ” his forehead fell back upon his 
hand — “I think that I’m going to sink!” 

Gerald laid one moist, warm palm 
against his cheek. 

“But you can’t sink!” he declared. 
“The ‘very present help’ won’t let you 
sink, if- — if you catch hold of it.” 

“I don’t know how,” the man groaned, 
“I’ve lost my grip.” 

“It isn’t your grip,” the boy urged, 
“the water’d loosen that, anyhow. I 


A LITTLE CHILD 


i7 


know, for I’ve tried holding on to a rock 
and when a wave comes it always makes 
you let go. But the ‘ very present help ’ 
never lets go. It’s God, you know. 
And if God let go the sun would fall 
down and the stars would fall down 
and we’d all fall down, mamma says. 
But He never does, and so there’s noth- 
ing to be afraid of.” 

“Nothing to be afraid of!” Graham 
repeated. 

Oh, the blessedness of childhood ! 
Some words came back to the man as 
he sat there — “a great gulf fixed.” It 
seemed to him that there was, indeed, 
a great gulf fixed, a well-nigh impassable 
flood, between the fearless thought of 
this child and the dark clamor and con- 
fusion of his own consciousness. 

“Mamma was telling me more about 
the sea last night,” Gerald went on. 
“She says there’s lots of diff’rent kinds 
of seas. Some of them have very big 
names. There’s one that begins with 
‘Dif — ’ but I don’t remember the rest.” 


1 8 A LITTLE CHILD 


“Difficulty?” Graham suggested. In 
spite of himself the boy kept dragging 
him out of his slough of despair. 

Gerald nodded. 

“Do you know about that sea?” he 
asked. 

“I ought to; I’ve been tossed about 
on it often enough.” 

“And there’s one that ends in ‘row.’ 
I remember that because row made me 
think of a boat.” 

“Sorrow?” Graham asked. 

“Yes. Do you know about that one, 
too?” 

“I’m beginning to know about that 
one.” 

“I know about the sick sea, myself!” 
Gerald declared. 

“So do I,” Graham admitted. 

“And then there’s the one daddy was 
nearly drowned in, the one you said you 
were far out on. But mamma says it 
doesn’t matter a bit what the name is, 
or how rough it is, or how far from shore 
you are, Love can walk over any sea 
and come and get you!” 


A LITTLE CHILD 


19 


Gilbert Graham was looking at the 
boy with an intent, earnest gaze. Was 
the gulf so fixed, so impassable, after all? 
Suppose there was a Power which could 
cross it and come to a man in his extrem- 
ity? 

“When I was out on the sick sea,” 
Gerald went on, “and my head was so 
wobbly that I didn’t know daddy or 
mamma, Love came and got me, right 
away. Oh, but ’twas fine when my 
head didn’t feel wobbly any more!” 

“How are you going to get it all 
started?” Graham asked. 

The child evidently did not grasp his 
meaning, so he put it in another way. 

“Supposing I wanted this ‘very pres- 
ent help’ — wanted it now — wanted it 
badly — what would I have to do to get 
it started toward me?” 

“Just know that you want it. My 
mamma says another word for ‘know,’ 
but ’tis a long one and I misremember 
it.” 


“Believe?” 


20 


A LITTLE CHILD 


Gerald shook his head. 

“Realize?” 

“That’s it!” 

“Realize that I need ‘a very present 
help,’” Gilbert Graham said slowly, as 
he gazed out to sea, “well, I do need it; 
and if ever a man realized his need I 
think I do at this moment!” 

“Then it’s coming — it’s coming oh, 
so quick! First thing you know the 
‘very present help’ will have hold of 
you, just like that!” and Gerald’s brown 
fingers closed firmly on the collar of 
Graham’s coat. 

Gilbert Graham patted the small hand 
and then held it for some time between 
both his own. When he rose, something 
that had been in his face before he began 
to talk to the child — marring its beauty 
and manhood — was gone. He was not, 
as yet, aware that his declaration, “If 
ever a man realized his need I think I 
do at this moment,” was the opened door 
through which Love had entered, issuing 
as it came the wondrous command, 
“Loose him and let him go.” 


A LITTLE CHILD 


21 


He released the boy’s hand regretfully. 

“You going away?” Gerald looked 
up wistfully into the dark, clean-shaven 
face. 

“Yes.” 

“For always?” 

“No, I’ll come back. That is — I’ll 
come back if what you’ve been telling 
me is true and I reach shore.” 

He had gone a little distance along the 
beach when a childish voice reached 
him. 

“When you come back will you draw 
me some more with that pencil?” 

The artist turned to nod assent. At 
sight of the small figure, so sturdy, such 
a living embodiment of the Love in 
which he so firmly trusted, his vision 
clouded. 

“He’s near enough to — ” Gilbert Gra- 
ham hesitated before mentally pronounc- 
ing the next word — “God to reclaim 
even me!” 


Chapter II 

THE SORROW SEA 

“I don’t know why I came!” 

There was a low throb of pain in the 
younger woman’s voice. For answer the 
elder pressed her hand more closely. 

“When I think of that summer two 
years ago,” the speaker went on, “and 
how Gilbert and the child and I used 
to romp on this very strip of sand, I 
marvel that I can be here, alone, and 
still live!” 

The soft, elderly palm, which covered 
her own, quivered. 

“Oh, Mother Graham, forgive me!” 
she said, turning quickly. “I am self- 
ish in my sorrow — I know it. And I 
keep forgetting that he was once your 
little boy, even as the baby was mine.” 

“He is my little boy still — and always 
will be,” Gilbert Graham’s mother an- 
swered steadily. 

“Do not think, Judith,” she added, 


22 


A LITTLE CHILD 


23 


“that I condone the past, or make light 
of what you have suffered. I am sure 
you know, my dear, that my chief object 
in life, just now, is to help you.” 

“I do know it. I could not have en- 
dured these past months if you had not 
let me come to you.” 

They sat for some time in silence. 

“Our little man was just two years 
old the summer that we spent here at 
Snug Harbor Beach,” Judith Graham 
said, presently. “I remember how Gil- 
bert used to carry him out on his shoulder 
and how he would shriek with delight 
when the water swept in round his 
father’s knees. It seems to me now that 
those weeks were my very last gleam of 
sunshine. To think that in less than 
two months from that time my baby 
was dead!” 

The older woman made no attempt to 
stem this outburst of grief. Youth must 
make its plaint, she thought pitifully; 
and the girl — she was little more — at her 
side was one of those who are capable of 


24 


A LITTLE CHILD 


receiving death-wounds through the very 
completeness of their love. 

“Of late,” she said, after a while, speak- 
ing in a low tone, “it has seemed to me 
that this cannot be the end, Judith, either 
for you or Gilbert. I have been think- 
ing much of God’s all-loving, all-wise 
plan for each one of us, and how we 
seem to draw back from it, even to 
dread it; whereas, in reality, it can 
hold nothing but happiness for every 
creature. I wish — oh, I wish with all 
my heart that I had thought of these 
things earlier in life, while Gilbert was 
still a boy! But then I was so proud 
of his good looks, of his popularity, of his 
talent for drawing, that I unconsciously 
made the turning aside into easier paths 
his rule of living. It has been the old 
story — no restraining father’s hand, an 
over-fond mother and an impressionable 
boy.” 

“Oh, Mother Graham, don’t,” Judith 
said quickly. “If you blame yourself, 
what about me? He never touched — 


A LITTLE CHILD 


25 


it — ” she stopped, shuddering — “until 
after baby went. I shut myself up then, 
alone with my grief. I spent hours just 
looking at his little clothes. I accused 
Gilbert of not caring. It seemed to me 
that all the world should have stood 
still and mourned with me. I was mad, 
I think. Too late I realized that misery 
a‘nd loneliness are open doors through 
which temptation may freely enter. To 
me the indulgence of grief was a luxury. 
To Gilbert the sight of a small shoe or 
toy was agony. Men are so different! 
Little by little he began to drift away 
from the cold, empty, silent place that 
had once been home.” 

The older woman did not reply. Hers 
was the blame, her heart cried out, hers 
alone! Had she ever taught her son 
that problems are not solved by shirking 
them? Had she fitted him to face the 
world’s woe unflinchingly and do a man’s 
share toward lifting it? Ah, that “line 
of least resistance” which she had made 
so natural for him! She realized now 


26 


A LITTLE CHILD 


that it is swimming against the current 
which develops moral muscle — the mus- 
cle which can resist temptation in after 
years. The mother bowed her head with 
an inarticulate cry, “Oh, God, I have 
failed, but Thy resources are infinite!” 

She put her own sorrow, her own 
sense of failure, bravely aside in order 
to help her companion. 

“It is hard, I know, to believe — when 
the sky is as dark as yours seems to be 
now, Judith, that it will ever be any 
brighter, but every day it becomes 
clearer to me that God’s law is a law of 
annihilation to every discordant condi- 
tion. It does make the crooked straight 
and the rough places plain. It will, if 
we rely wholly upon it, bring harmony 
and order out of seeming chaos. God 
did not create us, His children, to be 
driven by every wind and wave of dis- 
aster. When we begin to discern this 
great truth it is, indeed, the coming of 
the kingdom of heaven to our conscious- 
ness. I have thought so often, of late, 
of those beautiful lines — 


A LITTLE CHILD 


27 


‘ I know not where His islands lift 
Their fronded palms in air, 

I only know I cannot drift 
Beyond His love and care.’” 

Tears had risen so full in Judith’s 
dark eyes as Mother Graham finished 
speaking that she was not at first aware 
of a small figure which had halted di- 
rectly in front of her, or of a childish 
gaze fixed intently upon her face. Ger- 
ald, realizing that here was need of 
some kind, drew nearer. 

“You can’t know about it either, or 
you wouldn’t cry,” he began. 

“Know about what, dear?” 

Judith had taken one small, brown 
hand and drawn him closer to her. He 
was three years older than her own little 
son would have been, had he lived, but 
her heart yearned over him as it did over 
all children now. 

“About ‘God is love’ — ‘unfailing, 
quick.’” 

Coming so closely upon what Mother 
Graham had said the child’s words were 
almost a shock. 


28 


A LITTLE CHILD 


“He didn’t know about it until I 
told him,” Gerald volunteered. 

“Who?” Both women put the ques- 
tion together. 

“The man that drawed me with a 
pencil.” 

They turned and looked at each other 
involuntarily. Each had a mental pict- 
ure of a strong, supple hand and its 
quick, masterful work when anything 
appealed to the artistic sense controlling 
it. 

“Do you mean a man who drew a 
picture of you?” Mother Graham asked. 

Gerald nodded. 

“Here?” 

“Over near that rock.” He pointed 
with an extended forefinger. 

“Did he tell you his name?” 

A vigorous shake of the head answered 
this. 

“Do you think you could tell us what 
he looked like?” 

“He looked sorry, until I told him 
about the ‘very present help’ and ‘God 
is love’ — ‘unfailing, quick.”’ 


A LITTLE CHILD 


29 


Judith’s breath was coming with dif- 
ficulty. 

“It couldn’t be — it couldn’t,” she whis- 
pered. “And, yet, he might have been 
drawn back to this place, even as I was!” 

“I think that it was Gilbert,” Mother 
Graham answered steadily. £££ All things 
work together for good,’ Judith; remem- 
ber that, dear, and take courage.” 

“He’s coming back,” Gerald an- 
nounced. 

Judith started and looked around. 

“When?” she breathed. 

“He said if what I told him about £ a 
very present help’ was true he’d come 
back; and His true. Was he” — turning 
to Mother Graham — “was he your little 
boy?” 

“I hope so — I believe so.” 

“If he was your little boy you’d know 
about the big wave that swept him out.” 

“ I don’t think that he could have been 
my boy” — a shade of disappointment 
had crossed the elder woman’s sweet, 
patient face — “for I never knew of his 
being swept away by a wave.” 


3° 


A LITTLE CHILD 


“Oh, it wasn’t that kind of sea” — 
motioning to the. water behind him — “ it 
was a sea called sin and he said the wave 
had carried him ’way, ’way out. He 
knew about ’most every kind of sea. 
But I told him my mamma said it didn’t 
matter a bit what the sea was called, 
Love could walk over it.” 

Judith had covered her eyes with her 
hand. Gerald touched her cheek with 
one finger. 

“Are you out on the sorry — sor -row ” — 
correcting himself carefully — “are you 
out on that sea?” 

“God knows I am!” 

“Well, if I was you, I’d just know ‘God 
is love’ — ‘unfailing, quick,’ right now.” 

“Where did you learn all this?” 
Mother Graham asked, for the child was 
voicing thoughts which had been strug- 
gling for recognition in her own conscious- 
ness of late. 

“My mamma told it to me. She tells 
me something more about ‘a very pres- 
ent help’ every day. And she says that 
the ‘very present help’ was always here, 


A LITTLE CHILD 


3i 


but that a long, long time ago people 
forgot how much of a help it was; and 
then a good woman found out how much 
of a help it was and she put it in a book 
so that other people might know, and 
that’s how my mamma knows. Is this” 
— he touched Judith’s face again — “your 
little girl?” 

“Yes,” Mother Graham answered 
promptly. 

“Then you can tell her about it, just 
like mamma tells me!” 

“I am only beginning to learn about 
it myself, dear, in the same way that 
your mamma learned; but I thank God 
that I have even begun, and I think” — 
Mother Graham laid one hand on Ju- 
dith’s shoulder — “that my little girl is 
ready to learn also.” 

“Yes, and” — he nodded confidently — 
“you know Love can walk over the 
sor-row sea just as easy as any other!” 

Judith raised her wet face and drew 
the boy into her arms. 

“I believe,” she said slowly “that 
you are God’s messenger to me.” 


, Chapter III 

THE BIG WAVE 

Instead of staying the few weeks upon 
which they had planned at Snug Harbor 
Beach, Judith Graham and her husband’s 
mother remained on for nearly two 
months. Neither spoke to the other of 
the secret hope which chained them to 
the place, but each morning their eyes 
swept the beach with eager expectancy 
and each evening they said, “Perhaps, 
to-morrow.” 

Judith often sat for hours on the low 
slab of rock where her husband had made 
the sketch of Gerald. Whenever he saw 
her thus, Gerald would invariably leave 
his play for a few minutes and lean against 
her knee, just as he had leaned against 
Gilbert’s. Sometimes neither of them 
spoke and sometimes Judith would ask — 
without removing her eyes from the 
distant horizon — “Do you think he’ll 
come back?” to which Gerald’s unvary- 
ing response was, “Sure.” 

32 


A LITTLE CHILD 


33 


The moments when she was thus alone 
with him soon became to Judith the part 
of the day that counted. It seemed to 
her that while she sat with one arm 
round the boy, leaning her tired head 
against the warmth of his small body, 
the wounds which life had given her were 
being silently healed. No matter which 
way her path might lie, existence was no 
longer the dreary thing that it had 
been when she came to Snug Harbor 
Beach. Was it possible that Love had, 
indeed, walked over the sea of sorrow, 
to that desolate waste of waters where 
her bark drifted, and was saying, even 
to her, “It is I, be not afraid”? 

At the end of the seventh week a north- 
east storm of unusual violence swept the 
coast and Judith was compelled to re- 
main indoors for several days. She sat 
much near the window, sometimes read- 
ing, with deep interest, a small, leather- 
covered book which Mother Graham 
had recently purchased, and sometimes 
gazing out at the storm-lashed ocean. 


34 


A LITTLE CHILD 


She thought how One had risen from 
sleep and said to such a sea, “Peace, 
be still.” That the Christ could speak 
those words to-day with the same au- 
thority— was speaking them, now, to 
her storm-racked consciousness — daily be- 
came a more assured and glorious fact. 

When she again saw the strip of sandy 
beach, which had grown so dear because 
of its association with her own little son 
and with Gerald, the only trace of the 
recent storm was a heavy, sullen swell — 
called by sailors “the old sea” — which 
lifted and broke upon the shore, rushing 
in with tremendous force. Although the 
tide was out, Judith could not on this 
morning seek her usual seat, so far-reach- 
ing were the waves. She stood for some 
minutes on a path which wound through 
a maze of sweet fern and berry bushes, 
watching Gerald who, because of three 
days’ enforced absence from the sand, 
was bent on building a wonderful pyra- 
mid. 

‘The tide’s turned,” an old sailor said, 


A LITTLE CHILD 


35 


in passing, “she’s coming in and she’ll 
be pretty high.” 

Judith, who liked these simple fisher- 
folk, turned aside to talk with him for a 
few minutes. 

“Such a storm as we have had these 
last few days is unusual at this time of 
year, is it not?” she asked. 

“Oh, I don’t know,” he drawled, 
easily. “When it’s bin thick o’ fog out- 
side, as it has for a week past, it takes 
a considerable breeze o’ wind to clear it 
away.” 

“And does the ‘breeze o’ wind’ always 
leave such a swell as that?” Judith 
asked, as a wave crashed shoreward. 

“’Most always, after a no’theaster. 
There’ll be a heavy undertow to-day. 
Wouldn’t try any salt-water bathin’, 
if I was you.” 

When Judith faced the sea again, she 
was surprised to see how the tide appeared 
to have risen in so short a time, and how 
much further in the waves were break- 
ing. One came so near to where Gerald, 


36 


A LITTLE CHILD 


still intent qn his pyramid, dug steadily, 
that she called out to him. Her voice, 
however, was completely drowned in the 
roar of the surf. With a slight stirring 
of alarm she left the path and hurried 
forward. 

She had covered half the distance 
which separated them when her breath 
stopped, as though it had been blown 
back down her throat. To her terrified 
eyes the ocean seemed suddenly to lift 
and hurl itself landward. Such waves 
are not uncommon on the Massachusetts 
or Maine coasts after a northeast storm, 
with an incoming tide. Their force can 
seldom be calculated. 

It lifted Gerald as though he had been 
a chip of wood, carrying him inland for 
several yards. Then came the relentless 
clutch of the undertow. 

To Judith it was as though the very 
heart in her body was being battered 
and bruised as she watched those small 
hands vainly battling against that 
seething flood, while the wooden spade 


A LITTLE CHILD 


37 


he had so recently grasped floated al- 
most to her feet. If the child were 
caught under into the next wave, it 
seemed as though all life must be crushed 
out of him when it crashed upon the 
shore. For a sickening moment every- 
thing turned black before her eyes, but 
she fought off the faintness, crying aloud, 

“Oh, Thou ‘very present help’ — now — 
now — now l” 

And then, with a sob of thankfulness, 
she saw that a man, strong and supple, 
was beating his way through the water. 
He reached the boy, grasped him and 
held him high in his arms. When the 
wave broke, the man’s head was sub- 
merged, but the boy’s was not. 

The mighty volume of water lifted 
Gilbert Graham even as its predecessor 
had lifted Gerald; but, as the force of 
the wave spent itself, he realized with a 
throb of thankfulness that his feet 
touched bottom, for, as he had once told 
the boy, he was not an expert swimmer. 
Then came the rush of the undertow. 


38 


A LITTLE CHILD 


It seemed as though his body must 
yield before it, burdened as he was with 
the child. As he braced his strong 
shoulders against the flood his whole 
being was a cry for strength. All at 
once, this thing became to him symbolic. 
It was not alone for the boy’s life that 
he fought, but for his own manhood. If 
he could stand firm now without relaxing 
his grip of the child, he felt that no wave 
of temptation, no subtle under-current 
of appeal could ever again sweep him off 
his feet or loosen his grasp on goodness 
and truth. 

The old sailor, with whom Judith had 
talked a few minutes before, came stum- 
bling down the beach toward her. 

“He can’t make it — he can’t!” he 
muttered, with shaking lips. “The next 
wave’ll get ’em both!” 

On it came — the proverbial “third 
wave” which sailors know and dread. 
Higher than either of its immediate 
predecessors the swell rose. Judith laid 
her hands upon her heaving breast. 


A LITTLE CHILD 


39 


‘“It shall not overflow thee — it shall 
not overflow thee!’” she cried. 

“She’s prayin’,” the fisherman thought. 

She scarcely breathed during the mo- 
ments which followed. Then a cry of 
joy escaped her. The wave broke ere 
it reached Gilbert. The white flood 
carried him with it as it rushed in and 
left him on firm foothold. He staggered 
slightly when he reached the dry sand 
and the old sailor put out an arm to 
steady him. 

“If that wave hadn’t broke before it 
reached ’em, ’twould ’a’ bin day-day to 
’em both — boy an’ man,” he muttered 
as he turned away. 

Judith drew Gerald’s drenched little 
body close to the warmth of her own. 
The child’s eyes were wide open, but the 
shock seemed to have suspended his 
faculties. 

“Darling, you are all right, aren’t 
you?” she whispered. 

He did not appear to hear, and Gilbert 
sank on one knee beside him. 


40 


A LITTLE CHILD 


“Little chap” — he said, between la- 
bored breaths — “you haven’t forgotten 
about ‘a very present help,’ have you?” 

A light swept over the child’s face, as 
though something within him had waked 
up. 

“I— said it!” he gasped. “When— 
the big wave — came — I said, ‘God is 
love’ — ‘unfailing, quick.’ And then — 
you got me!” 

He drew a long, shuddering sigh and 
looked up at Gilbert while Judith wiped 
the water from his face. 

“It isn’t very nice — when a big wave 
— sweeps you out — is it?” he asked 
confidentially. 

“No,” Gilbert Graham answered, “it 
isn’t very nice.” 

He looked at his wife — a long look in 
which a man’s deep repentance was laid 
at her feet. 

“Dear,” he said, “I have much to say 
to you, if you will let me say it. But 
we must get the boy home. That water 
was pretty cold.” 


A LITTLE CHILD 


4i 


“I will take him,” Judith said. 

“And will you wait for me here? I 
want to speak to you on this strip of 
beach. But, first, I must see if I cannot 
get some dry clothing in the village.” 

“Mother Graham is here,” she sug- 
gested. 

“Tell me where and I will go to her,” 
the man said humbly. 

As he turned away, Gerald caught his 
hand. The natural life and color were 
returning to his small face. 

“When I get — my dry clothes on — will 
you draw me — some more — with that 
pencil?” he pleaded. 

“I surely will, son!” 

Above his head the man and woman 
looked at each other again and there 
was a light on their faces like the dawning 
of a new day. But neither voiced the 
thought which was in both their minds — 
“And a little child shall lead them.” 





















































































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